Lola saw them coming for her. During this transformation, however, she was fully herself. There were no more blackouts. No more was she able to hide behind her mind’s frailty and weakness. She knew the real truth about herself. Most of the truth anyway. There was still a piece of herself missing. She could feel it inside her. Like a hole. After coming to terms with everything, she finally realized just how much of herself had been walled away.

Now she didn’t have to shield herself from those parts and she unleashed all of it. It was almost euphoric. She didn’t have to hold back. While she didn’t consider herself a killer, which was the main reason she decided to let Drake live, she knew this time had to be different. Already, people that should still be alive were dead and their blood was on her hands now. And she wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

“No more second chances, Drake.” Her voice came out in a harsh, angry growl. She took in a deep breath, closed her eyes to center both her thoughts and the finality of her decision, and then opened them again. The silver light to them blazed to life. Power flowed through her. She felt strong enough to take on the world and win.

“Kill her now!” Drake snarled.

The dozens of mangy werewolves siding with him all charged her at once. Drake and Ray, however, elected to hang back and watch things unfold. It figured, she thought darkly to herself. Send in the expendable ones first. Let her waste all her strength and stamina on them. Tire her out. Exhaust her even. Then, when she could barely lift her arms to fight anymore, that’s when they would come for her. She figured that would be their ploy but did not end up with enough time to really think up an effective counter to their plan.

That was fine with her.

She would just have to fight.

The first wave of werewolves came at her in a flurry of claws and fangs. She felt the claws cutting into her and fangs latching onto different parts of her body. In her current state, she barely even felt them. They hurt the same way a bee’s sting hurt. It was annoying but more a minor inconvenience than anything else. They tried to bury her under a mountain of numbers but she wouldn't fold. She stayed upright, her strength more than a match for anything they could throw at her.

She flung out both of her arms. Any wolves still clinging to them were thrown off by the sheer force of her motion. At the same time, the long talon-claws of a ghoul slipped out of both arms. Then the claws of her werewolf nature pushed out her human fingernails. Finally, that hazy aura of darkness, the same kind the oni used, enveloped her.

“You made a huge mistake when you came for me,” Lola screamed. She meant this to be another challenge to Drake, but it could be applied to all the little grunts he sent after her too.

The next few moments weren’t quite a blackout-type blur but it went by so fast, it was hard for her to keep track of certain things. She whirled around, slicing into anyone close enough to her with claws or her talon-claws. They split open flesh and spilled blood. Screams and shouts of pain hit her but she forced the guilt of what she was doing way down, to a place where it couldn’t control her anymore. Once buried, she moved more freely and became a complete and utter force of destruction. Despite the numbers, the werewolves Drake sent against her had no chance. They fell in droves, cut to ribbons. Not one of them could match her speed and deadly power.

As soon as it became apparent they wouldn’t be able to bring her down, some of the more cowardly ones ran away. Lola let them go, not seeing the need to chase them down when Drake and Ray were her real targets. They were the ones controlling the weaker ones. The grunts. If she took those two out then there would be no more threat.

They were still about a few yards away, watching the proceedings with progressively unhappy looks on their faces. Lola figured the two princes thought throwing large numbers of werewolves would be enough but both were wrong.

“Don’t want to try your luck again?” she asked. Her silver eyes were locked onto Drake as she walked toward him. Ray looked uneasy. He kept glancing back and forth between Drake and Lola.

“She is more powerful than everyone was sayin,’” Ray snarled angrily. He started to back up, clearly wanting nothing to do with whatever fight was about to go down.

Behind Lola, there were bodies littering the ground everywhere. Some were still alive but groaning in pain. A lot more were dead. And were those the talon-claws of a ghoul? And the aura of an oni surrounding her? Ray had heard so many tales of how Lola managed to beat Drake but not being there, he didn’t really have a chance to grasp the full array of her skills. It didn’t help that he thought most of them were too outlandish to be true. He’d heard people call her some kind of new monster. Others called her an avenging demon, sent from the gods to punish everyone. He had tried to get more information from Russel, but his brother had been tight-lipped about the whole thing and he didn’t want to press too much for fear of having suspicion cast on him.

Seeing her now, wading through a sea of werewolves like they were nothing, sporting the abilities of three different supernatural creatures, made him realize he had been foolish in discounting those people so quickly.

“Ray,” Lola said, her voice a low rumble. “You don’t know the half of it.”

Then she flashed the last yard or two toward them in a blur of inky darkness, seeming to become one with the shadows. Before Ray could even flinch, she was right there. Right in front of him. She stabbed one of her claws into him, lifted him over her head, and then slammed him into the ground.

Drake tried to make a move against her as she dealt with Ray but that icy sensation rolled down her spine, alerting her to potential danger. Her head whipped toward him and she caught the clawed hand he used to try and strike at her with her free one. She immediately crushed it in her fist, the move a familiar one for the both of them.

“Don’t learn from your mistakes too well do you?” she taunted.

Drake screamed for a second and then clamped his mouth shut, forcing himself to bite down on that pain. He didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of seeing him hurting. Not again. It was a futile gesture though. The next instant, he found himself being swung around and around in a circle by her. The speed of it sank into the pit of his stomach, making him almost want to throw up. Then she let go and he flew through the air for several feet, maybe ten or fifteen feet in total. He might’ve kept going but she aimed her throw to where he slammed into the wagon that had been carrying him in its jail cell. There was an enormous clanging sound as he hit the metal bars and then he dropped to the ground.

Ray couldn't do anything to help his ally either. The prince of Oclan lay on the ground, completely immobile and bleeding profusely from the gut wound Lola gave him. The ghoul poison was working its way through his system. He wouldn't die, she was reasonably sure of that, but he was going to be feeling that tomorrow at the very least.

She left him there and went back to concentrating on Drake. He was struggling to get up from the ground. One of his arms had been broken so severely that the bone was poking out of his skin. A leg looked mangled. Part of his chest seemed sunken as if it had been caved in. He looked like he was in rough shape.

Good, she thought. I hope you feel every second of that pain and misery.

It felt so against her nature that she would want someone to feel pain but if anyone deserved it, it was Drake.

He finally managed to get back on his feet right as she got near him. Distantly, she realized that the explosions had stopped. Whatever firepower Drake and his little minions had was gone now. It was likely that they had hoped to use them to disorient everyone and make it easier to kill them all. She hoped that his plan hadn’t succeeded with the others that came along with them. She hated knowing anyone had died because she decided to let Drake live but if his plan to free himself would fail, then their deaths wouldn’t be in vain.

“I fucking h…hate y…you,” Drake said, his mouth full of blood. It stained his teeth.

Lola got right in his face, her claws and talon-claw poised to impale the monster that had caused her so much pain.

“The feeling is mutual, asshole.”

Before she could deliver her final, fatal blow, a gunshot rang out.